22nd May 2010

Fondant Recipe - Brandy’s experience

Brandy shows How to make fondant!

My Fondant Recipe brings a lot of mails and comments, but Brandy really got me speechless.

She followed my fondant recipe, and here’s what she wrote:

I tried your fondant recipe not only was it easy, but it tasted super! Thank you so much! Here is my cake. I think it turned out pretty well considering it is only the 2nd time I have used fondant.

Thanks Again

Brandy, 35

In Washington State

The reason for me being speechless is the quality if the cake she made in her SECOND attempt with fondant!

Fondant recipe cake

I must admit that m second attempt with the fondant recipe was much poorer than this, Brandy - I’ll be happy to post all pictures of future cake you make using my fondant recipe.

If you want to read more users stories of their experience with my fondant recipe, please visit:

If you make a cake using my fondant recipe you can send it to me and I’ll be happy to post it, my mail address is theduke@thecookduke.com

Happy Cooking

posted in Baby Shower Cakes, Birthday Cake Ideas, Cakes, How to make fondant, Uncategorized, Wedding Cakes | 0 Comments

22nd May 2010

Fondant Recipe - Danielle’s Experience

Fondant Recipe - How to make fondant

I love my fondant recipe, and I’m always happy to get mails from people who followed my fondant recipe to a great success.

Danielle sent me this mail after her FIRST attempt with my fondant recipe, it’s amazing that the cake she made looks SO good after the first try.

Fondant Recipe Suns cake

Here’s what she wrote:

Hi!

I just wanted to write a quick “thank you” for the great fondant recipe, instructions, and encouragement to give it a try! I have been interested in fondant for awhile. But I always heard it was too hard to make yourself and tastes bad. My younger sister found your recipe after doing random google searches. She tried it. She succeeded. She gave me the web address.

I don’t have much spare time (I have 4 kids and the oldest just turned 3!) but I got the ingredients I’d need, just to have them on hand. The other night, I happened to have a spare unfrosted cake just lying around….and a couple of hours I could spare (sure I had better things to do, like laundry, but the cake was much more fun. The laundry waited.)

I decided to make a Phoenix Suns cake for my husband (they are currently in the playoffs and we’re big fans). In less than 2 hours, I was able to create this fun little cake. Sure, it’s got it’s flaws, but it definitely showed me I am able to not only make fondant, but if I was really serious about it and made some time for it, I could probably do some really cool cakes! I was SO excited that the fondant actually TASTES GOOD too. My 3 year old ONLY wants to eat the fondant!

Thanks for your instructions and pictures. I probably wouldn’t have tackled it this soon (definitely not on a random Sunday night for no reason!), or at all, especially by myself without an “experienced fondant user” with me!

Thanks again!! Feel free to use any pictures/this email in any way you’d like!

Danielle

How to make fondant

So thank you Danielle for tring my fondant recipe, I’m posting my fondant recipe here again so more people can find it.

Fondant Recipe Ingredients:

1 Tbsp of unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup of cold water
1/2 cup of light corn syrup (If a corn syrup is not available, you can substitute it with a sugar syrup made with 1-1/4 cups sugar and 1/3 cup water, boiled together until syrupy)
1 Tbsp of EDIBLE glycerin (some recipes say it’s optional, believe me, it’s a must)
1 tsp of almond extract (I use almonds extract in m fondant recipe, but it can easil be replaced with Vanilla extract)
2 lbs 10X confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp of white vegetable shortening

Fondant Recipe Preperations:

Sprinkle the gelatin over cold water in a small bowl and let it rest for 2 minutes to soften
Place the bowl in a microwave for 30 seconds on High, until the gelatin dissolves
Add the Almond or Vanilla extract
Add the corn syrup and the glycerin and stir until the mixture is smooth and clear (if the mixture is not turning smooth and clear, microwave it for an additional 15 to 20 seconds on high and stir again)
Sift 1 1/2 pounds of the sugar into a large bowl
Make a hole in the sugar and pour the liquid mixture to it and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes sticky
Sift some of the remaining 1/2 pound of sugar onto a smooth work surface and add as much of the remaining sugar as the mixture will take
Knead the fondant, adding a little more sugar if necessary, to form a smooth, pliable mass
Rub the vegetable shortening on your thumbs and knead it into the fondant
Wrap the fondant in plastic wrap and place it in a tightly sealed container to prevent it from drying out. If the icing dries out and harden it can often be revived by popping it into a microwave oven for a few seconds and then kneading it back to life

One of the best things about this Fondant recipe is that the fondant recipe is not only simple and eas to follow, it also makes the best flavored fondant ou ever tried!

If you want to read more users stories of their experience with my fondant recipe, please visit:

If you make a cake using my fondant recipe you can send it to me and I’ll be happy to post it, my mail address is theduke@thecookduke.com

Happy Cooking

posted in Baby Shower Cakes, Birthday Cake Ideas, Cakes, How to make fondant, Wedding Cakes | 2 Comments

9th March 2010

Fondant Recipe - Alison’s experience

My Fondant Recipe is my favorite recipe, as i get most comments on it.
Read what Alison wrote after trying my fondant recipe and I hope you’re encouraged to try it yourself…

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake

Here’s what she wrote:

Thank you for sharing your fantastic fondant recipe on your site!
My baking skills are so-so, however after reading the fondant recipe, I felt confident that making tasty fondant was completely attainable!
Here’s my story, Alison, 29, Nashville:

Before I tried the fondant recipe on thecookduke, I had purchased the Wilton pre-made fondant to make a couple dozen toppers for cupcakes.
My first endeavor was successful, it gave me a chance to feel the texture and workability of the icing.
As cute as the toppers were, they tasted like cardboard. Even after rolling the icing out on powdered sugar…

After milling around on the internet, I came across thecookduke.com, read the testimonials, and asked a girlfriend if she would like to try it out with me…

We very precisely followed the directions… However, I think our fondant was a little too warm, because it kept “melting” or sticking to her granite countertops.
The vegetable shortening became key when working the icing, and we found that simply wrapping up the fondant and leaving it in the fridge for a few minutes (15-20) offered enough time to cool it down and solidify the texture.

We made two colors, orange and black. The black was very grey, even with a ton of icing dye. In the end, I simply painted dye directly on to specific spots to darken the grey to a black.
Orange worked great, we were able to achieve color in no time at all.

The tiger’s base is a marshmallow, with fondant shaped around it. His tummy, nose, ears, and paws are also marshmallow.
Then the marshmallow was coated with a little vanilla frosting - to give it that ‘fuzzy’ texture.
I did use tooth picks to attach his head to his torso, Paw prints were cut with circular cookie cutters.
I did include a portrait of Percy the Tiger by himself, because I kinda gave him a touch up before presenting him to my daughters school…

This project was pretty lengthly, and it did help to have a more experienced baker in the kitchen with me (it was her first time making fondant, too!).
Making the cakes ahead of time, from scratch, took about 3 hours. Two square white cakes with a simple mix of strawberry preserves heated and mixed with Grand Mariner as a filling.
Vanilla (store bought) frosting on the cakes to crumb coat.
The fondant portion ran roughly 6 hours, from scratch to finished cake.

It was completely worth the work and I cannot wait to make another cake (probably in two weeks!).

Thank you *again* for sharing this amazing fondant recipe. Your blog, advice, testimonials, and feedback gave me all of the ingredients and encouragement I needed for my first fondant cake!! =)

And look how great her cakes are:

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 1/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 2/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 3/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 4/5

Fondant Recipe Tiger Cake 5/5

I’m sure you all agree the cake looks GREAT, Alison, if that’s what you get on your first attempt I guess the sky is the limit for you…

You’re all welcome to try my fondant recipe, and if you’re not convinced yet, please see other readers experience with my fondant recipe at:

Happy Cooking

posted in Birthday Cake Ideas, Cakes, How to make fondant | 2 Comments

2nd February 2010

Fondant Recipe - Stephanie Experience

I got another reply for my Fondant Recipe, this time from 24 years old Stephanie from Tennessee.

Stephanie had a bad experience with the store-bought prepackaged fondant and she decided to give my fondant recipe a try.

Here’s what she wrote:
”
I just wanted to share with you how impressed I was with your fondant recipe!

I tried my hand at cake-making for the first time on my own this past weekend when I threw a bridal shower for a good friend. I had watched/helped my mom do several cakes, but I wanted to try it myself as well as save a little money and attempt to bring something creative to the table, and your recipe was the key!

When I’d helped my mom make cakes, we only attempted using fondant once and we used the store-bought prepackaged kind, which caused us to vow never to use fondant again… it was so hard that my husband couldn’t even get it rolled out flat- not to mention that it tasted TERRIBLE! Well, since then we have seen on TV and other places how great it can make cakes look and so I began investigating online for different recipes and came across yours. It was not only EASY, but it tasted so GOOD! I used it to create a smooth background for the zebra cake, and then tried my hand at making a monogram “B” - which will still need some perfecting or perhaps a cut-out I went on to your tips on how to color fondant and got the green and pink results that I was very pleased with. I got so many compliments on how great it looked and tasted.

As far as any complications, there were none, but I did notice while coloring it that it became rather sticky while kneading it after adding the gel coloring– all I had to do for that was just dab it into a little more of the confectioner’s sugar and continue kneading. This did require a little more than the 2 lbs. of sugar that was listed on the ingredient list, but I had plenty of that on-hand anyways, so no worries there.

Another helpful use I found for the fondant: When I stacked my cakes for both the round and square cakes, they sloped downward a little at the edges, so in order to even them out, I just rolled a little ball of the fondant, and placed it between the layers- at the corners for the square cake, and evenly spaced all around for the round. This was a life-saver as I opted not to buy some of the more expensive materials that keep it from doing that on my first try.

I have included pictures of the cakes with this email, and I will be checking in with your site periodically for other recipes!

THANK YOU, and HAPPY BAKING!

Stephanie B
”
And here are the pictures of the cakes she made:

Fondant Recipe

I think it’s a great success, I bet no one believed it’s her first attempt with fondant recipe!

If you want to try my fondant recipe you can find it in the post called… fondant recipe

You’re all welcome to send me pictures of cakes you made using my fondant recipe to theduke@thecookduke.com I’ll be happy to post it in my blog.

To see more pictures of people using my fondant recipe please visit “Fondant Recipe - Amy Johnson’s experience” , “How to make fondant - Gerbera Daisy Cake” and “Fondant recipe - Jacalyn’s Experience”

Happy cooking

posted in Baby Shower Cakes, Birthday Cake Ideas, How to make fondant, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

2nd February 2010

Fondant recipe - Jacalyn’s Experience

My fondant recipe post is by far my most popular post, and the one thing I like best about it is that many people are kind enough to send me pictures of the cakes they made using my fondant recipe.

Jacalyn W. had a great success with my fondant recipe, here’s what she wrote:
”
Dear Duke,

I recieved alot of cake supplies for Christmas because I wanted to start making cakes as a hobby. I worked with the tips, and frosting and I was starting to get the hang of it. But I really wanted to try fondant. So a friend asked me to make her boyfriend a cake for his birthday, and she picked the Brown family crest for the cake. I told her I would do my best.

So I came across your fondant blog, read it, reread it, and started mixing. btw micheals and hobby lobby carry glycerin. I was very proud of my cake, so I decided to send you some pictures. I painted some additional color on for more depth, and it wasn’t dry during the pictures. that why some spots are shiny.

Thanks for sharing!
Jacalyn”
And here are the great pictures she sent: